Feature Category: Article

Over the past few years, the eSports market has experienced a significant breakthrough from a small niche with a limited audience to a huge media industry, involving hundreds of millions of people globally. Given the popularity of video games, users expect that this is not the limit. It’s highly probable that with time, esports will become even more popular than traditional competitions.

 

While many users prefer playing exciting video games, following worldwide tournaments is also extremely common. The dynamism and special effects are comparable to or even superior to the best cinematic blockbusters. According to Statista, the industry is constantly expanding, making developers offer more and more highly technological games.

 

Betting on Esports is a New Trend

Gambling and betting fans also love esports since it’s a great way to have fun and earn some cash. Nowadays, numerous bookmakers provide competitive odds for such events, attracting millions of people. Those who would like to bet on esports should choose a reliable gaming site providing some online casino bonus offers and become its member to start. Betting has been extremely popular for many centuries, and now it’s even more accessible since there’s no need to leave home and visit any special establishments.

 

Experts predict that due to the popularity of the video games industry, sportsbooks will become more demanded among users.

 

 

What Are the Future Perspectives?

Even though esports is considered quite popular, we expect even more growth shortly. The success of any sport primarily depends on its financial success. And nowadays, multiple companies prefer to sponsor such events, which is the best advertisement for both parties. The prize pools of tournaments become more impressive, and some players’ salaries exceed the incomes of the leading football stars and worldwide-famous athletes. However, the industry is still young, so the financial situation in it happens to be unstable.

 

Of course, there are also specific sports organizations that support certain teams. However, while the number of sponsorship contracts grows, the quantity of companies is likely to decrease. It seems that only the most popular organizations that can attract more investments will remain afloat. While esports doesn’t no longer causes skepticism and is considered a serious activity, rather than entertainment for children, it still lacks the necessary financial support from governments.

 

Developing Games Available for All Users

Nowadays, one of the main developers’ goals is attracting new players and viewers, trying to increase the demand for their products. The future plans include the release of games that would be understandable for people who are not familiar with the industry. As soon as there is a discipline in esports that can captivate the average person, the market will take a huge leap forward.

 

It’s worth noting that esports has huge perspectives in the future, and Forbes predicts that it will become more common than football or basketball. More and more representatives of the younger generations dream about involving in the industry, and special academies open their doors to train the future professional gamers. Some of them have already graduated many promising esportsmen.

 

 

Bonus: Building an Esports Career

From the outside, such a career looks really wonderful: just play your favorite games and earn money from it! However, not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance, since this is also a job that requires significant effort. Players often train for over 12 hours a day to get more experience and be ready for some important tournaments. However, even though only 5% succeed in this sphere, the activity is worth a try.

 

Blind psychics, red macs and peculiar priests: a look at the 1970s British classic DON’T LOOK NOW

Director Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, based on a chilling short story by Daphne du Maurier, is frequently voted the Best Horror Film of all time. It stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as a couple trying to recover from a tragedy, who take a trip to Venice – but a chilling encounter with a blind psychic, who claims to be in touch with the couple’s dead daughter, has devastating consequences.  Here’s a look back, with the help of some celebrity fans, at this hugely influential horror film, available as part of the Vintage Classics range from STUDIOCANAL.

 

THOMAS VINTERBERG, director

 “It’s one of my all-time favourite movies – Nic Roeg was a master. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland are out of this world, amazing, in this movie. There’s a particular love/sex scene in a hotel room which I think is the best sex scene ever made. I highly recommend this movie – I watch it a couple of times each year. Respect to Nic Roeg for this masterpiece.”

HUGH BONNEVILLE, actor

 “There’s one shot in this film that really set me on edge when I first saw the film over thirty years ago, and it’s stayed with me. It’s a tiny moment, an apparently inconsequential angle on a priest opening his coat, and reaching into his inside pocket to get… a handkerchief. That’s all it is, but it’s so unexpected and unusual and odd that it unsettled me for the rest of the film, ratcheting up the tension in what was already a pretty uncomfortable watch. So whenever I think of DON’T LOOK NOW, I get this knot in my stomach as I think of that image. It’s amazing how films can suddenly get you like that. In the hands of a lesser director it wouldn’t have made it into the final cut, but Nic Roeg plays with structure, time, emotions, suspense so brilliantly in this film.”

 

ALICE LOWE, actress, writer, director

“DON’T LOOK NOW is an absolutely classic, timeless horror. So many films have been inspired by its use of colour, imagery and editing. A unique atmosphere which stays with you, oozing through you like the water in a damp canal! The Venice setting continues to make it one of the more original horror films, and has changed how I see Venice forever! Roeg’s editing choices always make his films have a shifting reality, a sense that nothing is solid beneath your feet, reality a mirror illusion, giving everything a dream quality. He changed the way many filmmakers approached horror. And this is a masterpiece of the genre.”

ALISON OWEN, producer

“DON’T LOOK NOW is the most haunting movie I’ve ever seen. When I arrived at university in 1979, we literally formed our tribe of friends by the rule of who could quote lines from the film. If you ‘got it’, you were one of us. Later on, when I had two small daughters, I could never let them wear a red coat – just the sight of a child in one sends the fear into me. That’s the enduring legacy of this masterpiece – once seen, it never leaves you.”

BRETT GOLDSTEIN, actor

“DON’T LOOK NOW is my answer to ‘objectively the greatest film of all time’ and the remastered edition only further cements my view. Nicolas Roeg’s film is an encapsulation of how we experience time, how we live in the past and the future and very rarely exist in the present. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland define the art of screen acting. This film, in my mind, is the best portrait of a marriage ever captured in cinema. Incredibly there was no rehearsal, yet you entirely believe this is a couple who love each other deeply and who have been together for years. The oft-discussed sex scene is extraordinary, not because it looks so real, but because it is a rare example of a sex scene that can make you cry, a true reconnection of two people disconnected by grief. The way we see the before and after simultaneously is the perfect expression of how sometimes we experience nostalgia and sadness for events passed, even while the event itself is taking place. An endlessly watchable film, filled with mystery and meaning and beauty and heartbreak and pure love. Oh yeah, and it’s also an absolutely f***ing terrifying horror.”

MAY EL-TOUKHY, director

“The first time I watched DON’T LOOK NOW was while I was still in film school and it made a huge impression. It made me realise that it is not only the content – the storyline, the location, the specifics of the characters – that makes a film special. It is how you as a director exercise and use those elements, that potentially makes a great film. The film is a very emotional and cathartic ride, that will make you wonder and ponder – and I personally love when a film can make your head spin like that”

REECE SHEARSMITH, actor, writer

“DON’T LOOK NOW is a kaleidoscopic, puzzle box of a film that ensnares you with its creeping dread and never lets go. From the opening scenes that show the accidental drowning of a little girl playing near a pond, the editing in DON’T LOOK NOW manages to unsettle and terrify. As the film cuts back and forth from fragmented moments in time, the story splintering like shards of glass-it makes for an incredibly moving study in grief, loss and love. Venice, water, reflections and shadows are all on beautiful display here, in a story that embraces the medium of film and dazzles in how it tells its devastating story. I think it’s one of my all time favourite films and STUDIOCANAL have released a beautiful edition here that displays Nic Roeg’s Venice set masterpiece in all its haunting splendour. Little red macs have never been so terrifying.”

SALLY HAWKINS, actress

“I love the book and du Maurier’s writing. I watched this with a dear old school friend many moons ago and we cowered behind the sofa for most of it, scaring ourselves witless. It still takes me right back there. I watched it before teen years far too young, but like all great films watched in early forming years they become part of you. The layering of images and the folding of time and playing with it… I can’t really put it into words… I find explaining why one film has an effect over another too hard”

SANDY POWELL, costume designer

“DON’T LOOK NOW is probably my all-time favourite film. I have seen it many times over the years but experienced it again recently for the first time in a while. I have an extraordinary visceral reaction every time I watch it even though I know it so well, but maybe because I know it so well. The devastating opening sequence is so powerful with its terrifying air of foreboding, when the idyllic mood of a lazy afternoon is disrupted by tragedy. There is something about Julie Christie’s character Laura’s blissful obliviousness to the imminent horror that makes me feel sick to the stomach. The final scene in the film of the funeral cortege in the creepily empty and atmospheric Venice also packs a punch, because we have already witnessed it in John’s earlier premonition. The build-up of tension is greater than any conventional horror film. I never tire of putting myself masochistically through the emotional trauma of watching DON’T LOOK NOW as it’s the work of a visionary genius, and there is nothing else quite like it.”

HOSSEIN AMINI, scriptwriter

“DON’T LOOK NOW is a film I go back to again and again. Not just for its gripping atmosphere of menace and tension but for its heartbreaking exploration of marriage, parenthood, grief and faith. Venice has never looked so beautiful and chilling at the same time and the film contains the most realistic and poignant sex scene in all of cinema. A horror classic and a masterful look at love and loss.”

TIM BEVAN, producer

 

“Surely one of the very best British films of this era was Nicolas Roeg’s DON’T LOOK NOW – its audacious edit, spectacular visual vista, tense storytelling and stunning performances are as modern and progressive as cinema today as when it was made nearly fifty years ago. It was one of the films of the seventies that I watched as a young man that inspired me to pursue a career in cinema. Nic was an early mentor to me and his fearless and individual approach to film inspires me to this day.”

 

DON’T LOOK NOW IS AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND UHD FROM STUDIOCANAL NOW

 

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest performing arts festival. They are thousands of shows to watch, and less than a month to see them all in, so you have to be selective. We paged through the programme looking for something to amuse STARBURST readers who may happen to be in Edinburgh this August.

Starship Improvise – Edinburgh Fringe
Talent from Mischief Theatre and The Showstoppers team up to present an hour’s worth of improvised science fiction silliness. Science fiction is such a rich genre we’re sort of surprised it’s not more common, but this is a show we are very excited to go and see.

The Twenty-Sided Tavern
Dungeons and Dragons is becoming the next new thing when it comes to on-stage improv. It’s cheap to do; throw in some talent, rules and an audience; who needs a script when you have decades of D&D modules to fall back on and the performers invent their own lines. This show adds a technological element which we’re keen to see also.

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch
Wicked, but with Ursula from A Little Mermaid?  From the creative minds of queer comedy collective Fat Rascal? Sounds like a riot to us. Clearly one of those show that is still enjoying ongoing development, so go see this and claim you got to see it first.

Fanboy
Stage plays in which a single mid-30s year old man pines for their childhood is pretty much route one when it comes to ‘geek culture inspired’ shows. However Fanboy’s performer,  Joe Sellman, is as phenomenal talent, so if anyone can make this old ground seem new, it’s Joe.

Buffy Revamped

Can comedian and actor Brendan Murphy recount the entire seven seasons of Buffy, from the perspective of Spike? Whilst dressed and performing as Spike? This is possibly the highest stakes so we’ll see at the fringe, so get your holy water ready.

This article has been edited to remove dead links.
You may want to check out our previous guides from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. Dedicated miners of this fecund seam begin to notice the same names cropping up, again and again, as if their whole career was based on a principle of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. What’s more, it isn’t all one-season failures and unsold pilots, there’s genuine gold to be found amongst their hoards; these men are surely the Titans of Telephemera!

HANNA-BARBERA

Founded in July 1957 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, two former animators for the MGM studio who had won Oscars for their work on Tom and Jerry, Hanna-Barbera (initially known as H-B Enterprises) quickly became the US’s foremost television animation studio, cementing their place in history with the first prime-time animated sitcom, The Flintstones, in 1960. Hanna-Barbera soon became a household name, a byword for quality animation and genuinely funny scripts, with top voice actors like Daws Butler and Don Messick becoming stars due to their work on H-B shows.

The studio enjoyed further massive hits with The Jetsons, Wacky Races, and Scooby- Doo, Where Are You!, with Hanna and Barbera remaining at the head of the company until it was sold to Turner Broadcasting in 1991. The pair still continued to consult on new shows until their deaths in 2001 and 2006, respectively, their legacy ensured far before that in the annals of television history. In all, Hanna-Barbera produced over one-hundred and seventy-five shows, as well as numerous animated specials, and their big hits are ingrained in our collective memories. But what of those H-B productions that didn’t make such an impact? Here are four shows from the 1960s you might never have heard of…

The Space Kidettes (NBC, 1966): Hanna-Barbera had made their first excursion into outer space in 1962 with The Jetsons, a futuristic transplant of the basic family sitcom trope used for The Flintstones. A prime-time sitcom aimed at a family audience, The Jetsons was followed in 1966 by two shows aimed at different sectors of the kids’ audience. Space Ghost, a superhero adventure show designed by Alex Toth with a realistic style to the human figures, appealed to the slightly older demographic amongst the Saturday morning crowd but The Space Kidettes was that classic cartoon action, all big heads and little bodies, with an emphasis on comedy rather than (light) peril.

The story revolved around four junior space rangers – Countdown, Jenny, Scooter, and Snoopy (and their dog, Pupstar) – tasked with patrolling the galaxy and protecting it from Captain Skyhook, one of TV’s first space pirates, and his sidekick Static. Skyhook is searching for a treasure map, safeguarded by the Kidettes, and will stop at nothing to get his hands on it – well, almost nothing: a regular refrain when Static suggests doing something terrible to our heroes is, “they’re just itty bitty kids!”

Sponsored by General Mills, the show premiered on September 10^th 1966, running for twenty episodes of twenty-two minutes each. After its initial run, it was edited down to just ten minutes per episode and paired with other General Mills-sponsored shows, eventually ending up in syndication alongside Samson & Goliath, each forming half of the half-hour (with commercials) show.

With the voice talents of Don Messick and Janet Waldo, amongst others, and stylistic animation that was a joy to see in colour, The Space Kidettes’ time was brief, earning just one issue of a spin-off comic book from Gold Key, but all twenty cut-down episodes have been released on DVD and it’s a good, fun watch even half a century later. Captain Skyhook never did get his hands on that map and for that we have The Space Kidettes to thank.

Samson & Goliath (NBC, 1967): The other half of The Space Kidettes and Young Samson half-hour began life as Samson & Goliath, a new show for the 1967 Saturday morning line-up on NBC. The show was again sponsored by General Mills, who this time also controlled its distribution through their Dancer Fitzgerald Sample agency, the only Hanna-Barbera show to form part of that array.

Only vaguely biblical, Samson & Goliath featured a teenage motorcyclist and his dog, travelling the US and helping out towns in trouble. Whenever the situation called for it, Samson would smash his golden wristbands together and receive the size and strength of the legendary Samson, while Goliath would transform into an oversized lion. The two would then dispatch whatever threat – evil scientists, the Colossus of Rhodes, the sinister secret organisation PERIL – arose, returning to a happy-go-lucky life of the travelling bum.

A young boy becoming a muscle-bound superhero is lifted directly from the original Captain Marvel, star of Fawcett Comics and rival to Superman in the 1940s before legal action by DC Comics brought him to his knees. Ironically, a new Captain Marvel – this time from Marvel Comics – would access his powers by striking together his golden “nega-bands”. Although Mar-Vell debuted just weeks after Samson & Goliath first made air, the nega-bands arrived two years later, with plenty of time for writer Archie Goodwin to have seen the Hanna-Barbera version. Or not, as our lawyers would like us to state…

Twenty twenty-two-minute episodes were produced, airing as part of a block with Birdman & The Galaxy Trio, in direct competition to H-B’s other superhero shows over on CBS, and when the original run had finished it was repackaged in syndication, cut down to fit a joint slot with The Space Kidettes. Those edited versions are available on DVD as part of a The Space Kidettes and Young Samson set, but you can also find plenty of them on video-sharing sites.

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (NBC, 1968): Yes, yes, you know all about The Banana Splits, that psychedelic trip of a show that featured the slapstick adventures of a pop band made up of oversized, freakish animals, but how much do you know about the other shows that filled the band’s adventure hour? The exploits of Bingo, Drooper, Fleegle, and Snorky were plenty fun, but they couldn’t have possibly stretched to fill the sixty minutes allotted to them on Saturday mornings in 1968 and so they were accompanied in their endeavours by a quartet of shows that spanned the wide world of adventure.

First up was The Arabian Knights, probably the best remembered of the segments if only for the “size of a cow!” catchphrase of Bez (nb: not from The Happy Mondays). The Arabian Knights told the story of Prince Turhan and Princess Nida, and their quest to free Persia from the evil Bakaar the Black Sultan, aided by shapeshifter Bez, Farik the magician, and Raseem the Strong, a trio of superpowered adventurers loyal to the cause.

More historical action came in the form of The Three Musketeers, a mostly traditional retelling of the Alexandre Dumas novel, but with added young people appeal in the form of Tooly, nephew to a handmaid to the Queen and all-around annoyance. Micro Ventures also joined the line-up, admittedly only for four episodes, with its story of a wacky professor who shrinks himself and his two children (and their dune buggy) down to the size of insects to explore the world from that vantage, and the three animated slices were accompanied by Danger Island, a live-action tale of an archaeologist and his family who explore a strange island and try to escape the attentions of a bungling band of pirates (featuring a young Jan Michael Vincent).

Eighteen episodes of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour were produced for the first season, quickly followed by another thirteen for a second outing, this time replacing The Three Musketeers with re-runs of The Hillbilly Bears, a short which had aired as part of The Atom Ant Show. The Arabian Knights and Danger Island were repeats of their earlier episodes, and this – coupled with a lackadaisical approach to the Banana Splits’ portions of the show – led to a ratings decline that saw the show cancelled in November 1969. Little of the non-Banana Splits material was released on home video but they are available to watch on YouTube if you’re in need of a man who can turn himself into a bucket of water…

Cattanooga Cats (ABC, 1969): With The Banana Splits Adventure Hour becoming a massive hit in its first season, plans were advanced to strike while the iron was hot, bringing another fictional rock band to the air with Cattanooga Cats, debuting on September 6^th 1969. The titular rock band were, naturally, cats; more specifically they were hillbilly hippy cats who played that weird mix of country and rock music that was weirdly popular in the late 1960s.

The Cats appeared in their own story segments, as well as musical performances (with songs written by Mike Curb, a young composer already becoming notable for his youthsploitation scores) and to introduce the other segments on the show, repeating The Banana Splits’ successful formula. The Cats were joined by three other features, the first being a loose adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, lopping a day off the schedule and starring Finny Fogg Jr, the grandson of the famous explorer.

The other additions to the line-up were Motormouse and Autocat, essentially a riff on Tom and Jerry but with racing cars (and bizarre, Heath-Robinson-style contraptions devised by Autocat to stop his rodent rival), and It’s the Wolf! It’s the Wolf! had the Paul Lynde-voiced titular lupine loser try to catch (and presumably eat) the innocent Lambsy, only to be thwarted time and time again by musclebound sheepdog Bristlehound.

The most traditional of the segments, It’s the Wolf! was spun off with Motormouse and Autocat into a show of their own, leaving Cattanooga Cats to enter a second season cut down to half-hour episodes with only Finny Fogg for company, but there were no new episodes produced and the all re-run show didn’t survive for a third season. None of the shows featured as part of Cattanooga Cats have ever been released on home media, but – as always – YouTube is your pal.

Next on Titans of Telephemera: Into the disco days of the 1970s, where CB radio, roller skates, and Scooby-Doo clones have their time in the sun!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)

Manchester is a city famous for it’s vibrant arts and culture scene. The city is well known for being the place where amazing art begins. With that in mind;  The Greater Manchester Fringe is filled with new talent and experimental acts. It’s a city where you get to see the next big thing first.

While you’re enjoying the Manchester International Festival Sounds 2022, remember that The Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July and tickets are usually less than a tenner.  And don’t forget to visit STARBURST’s favourite bar, Fab Café, for some pre-show drinks beforehand.

Let’s take a look at some of the cult entertainment style shows on offer in 2022.

Skedaddle: A Space Opera The Empty Space: Tue 26th July – Weds 27th July. Salford Arts Theatre: 29th  July to 30th July 19:30

Twitter: @Rocket_Whip . More: linktr.ee/rocketwhip

The most exciting show of 2022.

Everyone loves a musical. A Sci-Fi one more so. Skedaddle is an intergalactic, dystopian adventure about finding hope on a hopeless planet. Our plucky protagonists will face challenges spanning love, loss, climate change, and the burning remnants of the Crystal Wars.

Science Adventures: The Power Pickle Salford Arts Theatre: Mon 25th Jul – Wed 27th Jul 18:00

Twitter:  @CoppiceTheatre More: Coppice Theatre

So much fun.

Meet the A.C.E.S, an elite team of scientists doing science like no-one has ever done science before! Professor Von Brandt and the team are on the ground looking for the perfect location for their top-secret, super-important, science-assignment. But the team are in a right pickle! Professor McGuffin’s ground-breaking Sub-Nuclear Optical Transmitter (S.N.O.T.) has stopped working, and it’s jeopardising the whole mission! Disaster! Now they need to find a way to power it! Join our intrepid scientists on an adventure like no other…

It’s Not Rocket Science The Empty Space (formerly Footlights House): Fri 22nd July – Sat 23rd July 19:30,14:30

Twitter: @LetterFLetterTC More: Letter For Letter

Important and intelligent theatre.

Eve always knew she belonged in the stars, but those on Earth keep bringing her down. Watch her grow up and grow wiser about how rocket science is the easy part, but being treated equally isn’t.

A combination of verbatim and epic theatre, It’s Not Rocket Science is inspired by interviews conducted with over twenty female aerospace professionals from around the world. Eve’s life is an amalgamation of all their stories, and their interviews are quoted both directly and indirectly within the production. Watch these real women’s stories and learn about their experiences navigating a male-dominated industry.

Garry Starr: Greece Lightning The Kings Arms Theatre Mon 18th July – Fri 22nd July 19:00

Twitter: @garrythestarr More: garrystarr.com

Ridiculous fun.
An overzealous idiot attempts to perform all of Greek Mythology in less than 60 minutes in order to save his Hellenic homeland from economic ruin. Never before has Medusa been looser, Achilles more sillies, or Uranus so heinous. Having single handedly saved the performing arts in 2018 with his multi-award-winning debut show Garry Starr Performs Everything, comic wunderkind Garry Starr returns with another anarchic masterclass not to be mythed.

Mr Benn The Musical The Squad House Fri 8th Jul 20:00

Twitter: @StageSquad More: stagesquad.co.uk

Unmissable Nostalgia Inspired Fun.
Mr Benn is back for two brand new adventures from behind the dressing room curtain!
Follow him kicking and screaming with laughter back to the 1970s in this hilarious adults only comedy musical thing….

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. They hit the schedules alongside established shows, hoping for a long run, but it’s not always to be, and for every Street Hawk there’s two Manimals. But here at STARBURST we celebrate their existence and mourn their departure, drilling down into the new season’s entertainment with equal opportunities square eyes… these are The Telephemera Years!

2005-06

If you weren’t a fan of singing and dancing, or crime and medical dramas, the top-rated shows for the 2005-06 season made for grim reading, with just the bonkers fun of Desperate Housewives and Monday Night Football (which, depending on the result, could also be a criminal or medical matter) breaking the dominance of American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and the rest. For genre fans, Lost was building its mysteries with a second reason doing almost ten million viewers a week, but Alias – JJ Abrams’s other weekly slice of goodness – was coming to the end of its run on ABC.

Alias wasn’t the only show finishing up, with That 70s Show, Malcolm in the Middle, and Will & Grace all leaving sitcom fans heartbroken, while Joey would also face the axe at season’s end. The WB was losing Charmed but Supernatural was just starting its billion-season run for the channel, and genre fans were particularly well catered for with BEN 10, Ghost Whisperer, Kyle XY, and Masters of Horror all kicking off across the schedules. That was all well and good for the adults in the room but what were the young – and young at heart – watching? This is the story of 2005 in kids’ TV…

GI Joe: Sigma 6 (Fox): The original GI Joe cartoon was one of a series of ground-breaking shows created in the wake of the deregulation of FCC rules forbidding toy products from having accompanying TV shows – effectively, half-hour adverts – in 1981, and ran for ninety-five episodes between 1983 and 1986. The toy line that inspired it continued through to 1994, with a series of garish additions to the line, before lying dormant, but was revived in 2005 with a new line, Sigma 6, and a new larger size of action figure.

Of course, what good is a new toyline without an accompanying cartoon, and 4Kids Productions won the battle to bring the new-look characters to the screen, farming out animation duties to Japanese studio Gonzo, who produced twenty-six episodes to air on Fox on Saturday mornings, just after the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

Like the original series, the show concentrated on the battle between the Joes – led by General Hawk, with able backing from Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Duke, and the rest – and the forces of Cobra, who counted Cobra Commander (sadly not voiced by Chris Latta this time around), Destro, the Baroness, Storm Shadow, and Zartan’s Dreadnoks among their number. The first episode saw the Joes attacked on two fronts – the North Pole and the Amazon – and subsequent episodes introduced power stones, nanotechnology, ninjas, and giant robots, although not the transforming kind!

The toys were discontinued after two years, with Hasbro returning to the 3¾” scale for a twenty-fifth anniversary range, and the cartoon followed suit, finishing with its second season finale, “Assault”, the final part of an expansive three-episode story. In 2009, celebrated comic writer Warren Ellis would be hired to write a new GI Joe cartoon – GI Joe Resolute – to cash in on the GI Joe: Rise of Cobra big budget Hollywood movie.

Flight 29 Down (NBC): What better way to cash in on the success of Lost than with a version for kids, right? That’s the idea behind Flight 29 Down, a new show for Fall 2005 produced by Discovery Kids for NBC, which aired for three seasons between October 2005 and August 2007. Developed by Stan “Lizzie McGuire” Rogow and Are You Afraid of the Dark? creator DJ MacHale, the show told the story of group of teens on their way to an eco-adventure camp in Palau, forced to crash land somewhere in Micronesia.

Told using a video diary format, six of the children and their spoilt adult chaperone band together to work out how to survive, with three other children and the plane’s pilot leaving to find help, ending up “lost” on the island. Filmed on Hawaii, with a cast of veterans from such shows as ER, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Boston Public, the show occasionally gets too bogged down in the minutiae of survival rather than any big peril but there are still enough dangers along the way to fill the runtime without too much shouting.

The teens endure storms, the birthing pains of democracy, and inter-camp tensions, as well as literal mystery boxes, and the story reached the end of season two with no conclusion. Luckily, a third season was commissioned, in the form of a feature-length episode, cut into four chapters, where things come to a head and, unlike Lost, there’s not even a hint of time travel or mystical nonsense, with a very definite ending.

The young cast are a likeable lot, with Tami Lynn Fujimoto, Hallee Hirsch, and Johnny Pacar all showing promising glimpses, but only Corbin Bleu went on to have any sort of middling fame. He became a soap opera regular with a lengthy spell on One Life to Live and appeared in High School Musical, launching him into a singing career overseen by Stan Rogow.

Spider Riders (The WB): Spider Riders is based on a series of novels written by husband-and-wife team Ted Anasti and Patsy Cameron-Anasti, who met when they worked on The Smurfs together, before going on to help create Duck Tales and a slew of other animated properties. After working on Timon and Pumbaa in 1999, they stepped away to work on other projects, eventually releasing the first Spider Riders book in 2004. The concept was immediately optioned for an animated TV show and a fifty-two episode series was produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment and Japanese animation studio Bee Train, known mostly for their work on ..hack//Sign.

The story’s protagonist is Hunter Steel, an eleven-year-old boy searching for a mythical inner world by following instructions left in his grandfather’s journal. Startled by a spider, Hunter falls into a hole and finds himself in the subterranean world of Arachna, where he encounters a group of children who ride giant spiders into battle, defending their land from the invading Invectids. What Hunter doesn’t know is that a prophecy fortells that a human will bring doom to Arachna…

The fifty-two episodes were split into two seasons and more or less told the story of the first book in the series, and was also shown in Japan on TV Tokyo, where it was known as Spider Riders: Oracle no Yūsha-tachi (“Heroes of Oracle”). Unfortunately, no third season was forthcoming and anyone who wants to know what happened to Hunter, Sparkle, Lumen, and the rest will have to read the books, like in the olden days.

Squirrel Boy (Cartoon Network): Everett Peck created Duckman as a comic book for Dark Horse in 1990 and saw it picked up by the USA Network as an animated series between 1994 and 1997. The sardonic, lewd, and self-deprecate Duckman was clearly not intended for children but having worked as a character designer for The Real Ghostbusters and Jumanji: The Animated Series, Peck had form in that world. Squirrel Boy was the result of combining the two sides of Everett Peck, the story of a squirrel named Rodney who exasperates his human best friend (and nominal owner) Andy with his zany, get-rich-quick plans.

With a first-class voice cast that included Pamela Adlon, Richard Steven Horvitz, Kurtwood Smith, and Billy West, and a team of writers led by Christopher Painter, the show packed two stories into each half-hour episode, running for two seasons on Cartoon Network from May 2006 to September 2007. The pals got involved in running a sandwich stall, racing melon carts, joining the Badger Scouts, and dozens more wacky schemes, increasingly angering Andy’s dad and all the while trying to win Rodney the hand of Darlene, a pretty yellow squirrel who lives next door.

After the full run of twenty-six episodes had aired, a further six shorts were produced, debuting in January 2008, but Peck decided to retire the character, as he had done with Duckman a decade before, preferring to focus his energies on freelance illustration, which has led to him producing covers for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Playboy, amongst other magazines.

Loonatics Unleashed (The WB): Loonatics Unleashed takes place in the far-flung future of 2772, when a meteor strikes the city planet of Acmetropolis, knocking it completely off its axis. The meteor unleashes waves of strange energy that transform some of the city’s residents, giving them powers and abilities bordering on the fantastic. Called by a mysterious woman named Zadavia, six familiar teens form a superhero team, protecting Acmetropolis from any and all threats that emerge from its strange new world.

An attempt to meld the humour and energy of classic Looney Tunes cartoons with a cool, modern aesthetic, Loonatics Unleashed was developed by the Tremblay brothers, who had brought SWAT Kats to the screen in 1993 and were thought perfect to introduce a darker, episodic tone to the Looney Tunes universe. Their initial designs were met with much criticism, and there were calls from fans to start over, but producer Sander Schwartz held firm (although he soon after departed Warner Bros for Sony).

The stars of the show were the distant descendants of our Looney Tunes favourites, led by Ace and Lexi Bunny, and also including Danger Duck, Slam Tasmanian, Tech E Coyote, and Rev Runner. They each had a special ability which they used to combat such remixed threats as Sylth Vester, Pierre le Pew, Melvin the Martian, Electro J Fudd, and a number of original creations.

The show ran for two seasons of thirteen episodes, the second of which had a theme by Bootsy Collins, but largely received a negative reaction from diehard Looney Tunes fans, which may have been the reason the franchise lay dormant for four years after the final episode aired in May 2007. In the run-up to the release of a new Looney Tunes series in 2011, the Vice-President for Creative Affairs at Warners described Loonatics Unleashed as “a reminder of what not to do.”

Next time on Titans of Telephemera: We begin a five-week detour into the lesser-known shows of Hanna-Barbera!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)